Civic Impact

This past Friday, the Toronto Reference Library hosted a gala featuring some pretty impressive attendees. Toronto's Poet Laureate, George Elliott Clarke, was there. So was Kenny Robinson, the widely successful Gemini-nominated comedian. The well-known artist and activist Andrea Thompson performed spoken-word.
 

The artists were just some of the performers that had gathered to kickoff the start of Black History Month at the Toronto Public Library (TPL): an annual month-long event series that brings a wide-spectrum of performers into library branches across the city.

 

Despite a sometimes scant budget, Black History Month, says Joseph Romain a programming coordinator with TPL, always manages to attract a high level of talent. 

 

The challenge, says Romain, is not finding the talent, it's sorting through it all. 

 

"We have a broad spectrum of talent in the city from the black community. It's really a matter of selecting rather than searching. We have so many networks and people always want to come back--it's almost too big."

 

To help him program the 2014 events, Romain enlisted the help of spoken-word artist Andrea Thompson.

 

"I do a lot of programming, but my programming is all over the map so I often need to reach out for some expertise," says Romain."Someone who knows who is doing what and where and why it's interesting. Andrea Thompson was really helpful in reaching out to a number of communities and artists."

 

"We tend to hire really big people. If someone is a birthday party entertainer you won't find them at these events. It's true that people make better money doing what they do elsewhere. But they recognize we're an important part of the community and we get really good acts."

Among the people participating in this year's events (in addition to Elliott Clark, Robinson, and Thompson) are Gemini award winning film maker Seth-Adrian Harris (who will be giving a presentation at the Palmerson Branch on February 4th), some of Toronto’s best black poets who will perform poems from the The Great Black North poetry anthology (February 20th at Downsview; February 26th at Riverdale) and Ian Keteku, the 2010 World Poetry Slam Champion (February 13th at Amesbury Park). 

"People like to see themselves in our buildings and see their community represented. The artist want to come out and people want to come out to see them."

Full schedule here.